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Could a “children’s crusade” save democracy? Consider “Blue Watermelon”
By
Published: Jun 27, 2022
Category:
editor's letter
I’ve looked at the research, and while it’s clear that white women are the biggest segment of voters in swing states… and that 52% of voters aren’t college graduates… and and and… Statistics are bloodless. But experience — that is, the experience of my lost-distant youth, when I was in the streets and brainstorming confrontation and writing a book that had me described, for about ten seconds, as the voice of young America — tells me no group is more important than the young.
There are lot more of the young than there used to be. There are 65 million Americans in Generation Z — that’s 20.35% of the population. They’re liberal – 65% voted for Biden — unlike older voters, who are more likely to vote and more likely to vote Republican.
Gen Z is idealistic about issues. That’s the good news. The bad news: It’s cynical about politics. Getting Gen Z to put down its vape pens and get involved in campaigns and then vote — that’s the problem. It hasn’t been solved. It needs to be.
What follows is a proposal for a “Blue Watermelon,” a project I’ve created — as a very rough first draft — for Gen Z. I believe it can get views and make news and, maybe, jumpstart a positive change in the American psyche. Color me foolish, but I think it’s just the sort of programming Lorne Michaels, creator of “Saturday Night Live,” would launch now. (Please don’t even think of absconding with it — it’s registered with the Writers Guild of America East.)
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BLUE WATERMELON: a proposal for a streaming reality show/ad agency/media campaign
Only kids can get kids to register. Only kids can get kids to volunteer. Only kids can get kids to vote. And only kids can animate their defeatist, passive parents.
The vehicle is media. YouTube videos… TikTok… Instagram — media is oxygen for kids. So “Blue Watermelon” is an ad agency, a very junior 2022 version of “Mad Men.”
In the beginning, it has an office and computers and shabby furniture found on the street. It has no clients, so it makes clever, goofy, sometimes angry PSAs and posts them on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. One gets noticed, the agency gets traction, maybe it scores real world clients and makes real commercials. One thing it definitely does: these kids use current events and what they see around them and what they hear at the dinner table for fodder. And this gets them more attention.
Who are the 5 to 7 kids in “Blue Watermelon?” A rainbow crew, with racial and gender diversity. They have different ideas and styles. Count on emerging leaders, count on conflict, count on drama.
There will be one kid in the agency like David Hogg, the clean-cut 22-year-old survivor of the Parkland shooting and now a gun control activist. His most recent YouTube video, uploaded on June 12, has 12,000 views. He’ll have trouble becoming a leader here.
There will definitely be a kid like my 20-year-old daughter. You, old person, are on Facebook — she scorns it. Ditto e-mail (if you must send it, text her to say she should look at her mail), almost all movies and streaming series. She can’t recall when she last watched network TV. She has a Ph.D. in TikTok and Snapchat and a few YouTube channels. Guaranteed you’ve never heard of her favorite store.
There are millions of kids like her. When was the last time anyone told those kids to go out with their iPhones and bring something back — and it wouldn’t have to be vetted by adult gatekeepers so it could be released?
The smart, talented, entrepreneurial kids in “Blue Watermelon” don’t want to become Influencers and live in a group house in LA and make millions. What they do want is to make original programming that’s actually original.
Can “Blue Watermelon” get more of Gen Z to vote?
Can Gen Z voters save us from a future in which an authoritarian government run by old white men sends the planet careening toward oblivion?
“Blue Watermelon” asks: Why not?
